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Creative Dinner at Gunshow (Atlanta, GA)

For those who are not following my eating jaunts on my Instagram, I’m eating (intensively) in Atlanta, Georgia. Eventually I will write a general post about my experience in this great and unique city, I’m telling you about one of the most creative meals I’ve had out there at Gunshow in Glenwood Park neighborhood.

Gunshow is a causal style restaurant with seriously cooked food. It has a casual attitude and atmosphere with a large open kitchen and a huge dining room that feels partially like an airy cafeteria with an industrial feel (the metal chairs are comfortable enough) and rock and roll playing a few decibels louder than preferred (I have to talk louder than normal for my friend across from me to be able to hear me). The dim sum style serving with chefs cooking and bringing a large tray their food to your part of the table and let you decide if you want to order a dish (or two) or see the rolling cocktail cart and the bartender mixing, shaking and flaming (if applicable) your drink. It definitely feels like I’m watching a show of some type since my eyes are darting back and forth to the chefs cooking at the open kitchen or the bartender flambé the Toasted Old Fashioned cocktail or rolls up near my end of the table.

The food is New American cuisine that isn’t afraid of big, complex flavors. The menu cycles out a few dishes on an almost bi-weekly basis to keep the menu different and new. The chefs and cooks are the heart of what makes this concept so interesting. Each person is responsible for his or her own dishes from start to finish. They have to make it and sell it the customers, which is easier for some than others. It can be awkward when you say no to one of them.

The cocktails were perfectly done with a few are the unusual savory and vegetable side. My friend has the Rites of Spring ($11), a bright green mixture of Irish whiskey, snow pea juice, white pepper honey lemon, and absinthe, that was nicely balanced of sweet and savory notes. I stuck with the fruity but not to sweet La Luchadora Punch ($7) of tequila, mezcal, pineapple mint agua fresca, ginger, Angostura, and topped off with brut sparkling wine.

The Ace blade oysters ($14) from South Carolina topped with Tajin, tamarind, and green apple Gatorade were good but not mind blowing take on a mignonette. I think the sharp acidity of the tamarind hindered the brininess of the oyster a bit more than preferred. Otherwise, these were perfectly fine oysters.

Morel mushrooms ($27), topped with foie gras mousse, spring onions, sherry vinegar with a side of truffle toast was a generous bowl of deliciousness. The mixture of flavors from the morels, spring onions and the sharp acidity of sherry makes them intense umami filled bites. I just wish we had more toast or bread to mop up the sauce.

The gaucho style grilled beef short rib ($18) was a fine short rib dish. The vibrant, herbaceous chimichurri sauce was key to the whole dish to an otherwise typical grilled short rib.

Brûlée’d Asher blue cheese ($14), lemon curd, rhubarb, and Marcona almond is a savory-meet-sweet custard dish. I liked the originality of this firm custard but when we ate this dish, it wasn’t as hot as I would prefer. The cheese custard had enough of the creamy, earthy, complex blue cheese to offset the sweet egg custard. The sharp, biter salad added more savoriness to the dish. This was my second favorite dish.

The final savory dish we ended up ordering was black garlic noodle ($15), egg drop dashi, soft shell crab. My friend and I have been waiting for this dish ever since we’ve seen this on the menu. Unfortunately with the high expectations and anticipations, it fell a bit short. There’s some disjoint between the crab and the noodles. The fried soft shell crab should have been kept separate; it gotten soggy when it sat in the bowl of soup while transiting from the kitchen. The house made noodles were chewier and al dente than I prefer for a soup noodle dish but it’s still very well made pasta.

To finish off our meal, our desserts ($10 each) were warm old fashioned banana pudding lined with pound cake and topped with meringue and “Strawberries & Cream”. The banana pudding was very tasty. Wholesome, hearty, super sweet from the ripened bananas but the mile high meringue was a bit too much for me.

The strawberries and cream was a composed dessert of slices of Japanese style cheesecake, slivers of beets, strawberries and white chocolate flakes. The primary motivation why I wanted this particular dessert was the beet but its delicately sweet, earthy flavor got lost in the mix. Otherwise, this dessert was good.

Gunshow thrills and throws diners off balance in the best possible way, but it is also an evolving experiment.